2017 Domaine Dauvissat-Camus Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos

The 2017 Chablis Les Clos Grand Cru is another positively dazzling wine in Vincent Dauvissat's cellar. Powerful and deep, with seemingly endless layers of flavor that develop in the glass, the Clos is utterly mesmerizing from the first taste. Lemon confit, exotic white flowers and crushed rocks are some of the notes that develop. More than anything else, the Clos is a wine of total seduction and rapturous beauty. Don't miss it. (AG) 98+ Review Date: January 2020

This has such completeness and very expressive long powerful palate with a wealth of ripe lemons, grapefruit, peaches and nectarines. So much in this glass of wine! The length, power, finesse and seamlessness is staggering. Such intense fruit with flesh and depth. Super long, intense and compelling. Light but intense. Review Date: July 2018

The 2017 Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos is more powerful than the Preuses, offering up a more extroverted expression of fruit with notes of lemon oil and mandarin, mingling with nuances of beeswax, dried white flowers and iodine. On the palate, it's fuller-bodied and more textural, with chewy extract and substance but with bright balancing acids and a long, stony finish. For finesse and complexity, the Preuses has the edge at this early stage, whereas Les Clos leads in terms of mass and impact. As is consistently the case, Vincent Dauvissat has fashioned some of the finest wines to be found in both the 2016 and 2017 vintages. 2016 is a small crop, amounting to a mere third of an average harvest. The wines are comparatively low in acidity, with notable concentration, but remaining tense, pure and incisive. By the standards of Dauvissat's wines, I suspect they will prove comparatively precocious but hold well—perhaps evoking the 1992 vintage. The domaine also suffered in 2017, though not as badly, losing some 30% of a normal harvest. The remaining grapes were ripe and clean, producing wines best described as classic but charming. As at several other addresses where long sur lie élevage is the norm, I caught the nascent 2017s very early in their evolution, so I'll try to look at them again later in the year. (WK) Review Date: August 2018